8½

“Destroying is better than creating when we're not creating those few, truly necessary things. But then is there anything so clear and right that it deserves to live in this world?” One could be forgiven for not fully understanding this film, I sure as hell don’t, but that’s not to say this picture doesn’t articulate its themes excellently. Fellini’s 8½ is a film about escape. Escape from reality, escape from commitment, and especially, escape from the responsibility of creating the film. Also worth noting how meta this film is, a film within a film about the director directing the film, (Fellini) which is also his 8½ film. The film spends its time weaving in between dreams, childhood flashbacks and reality with minimal cues, nearly replicating human thought process. This could’ve been portrayed a bit better, even without the usage of obvious transitions. Cinematographically the film really ramps up at about the half way point. There’s a significantly higher amount of interesting shots in the latter half of the film, but the former is still fine. 8½ is something to be intently examined, it has a lot to say, and I fear I’ve hardly scratched the surface. (4.5/5)